On Thu, Mar 20, 2025 at 11:09 PM Stefan Kangas <stefankangas@gmail.com> wrote:
Ship Mints <shipmints@gmail.com> writes:

> On Thu, Mar 20, 2025 at 12:57 PM Ship Mints <shipmints@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Text properties are added by common completion frameworks, and serve no
>> purpose when stored in 'recentf-save-file', waste space, and slow loading
>> the file.
>>
>> I did not add this to NEWS as I consider this non-user visible.  Happy to
>> add this if the maintainers disagree.
>>
>> I've been running recentf with 'substring-no-properties' for ages and
>> others should benefit, by default.
>>
>> -Stephane
>>
>
> savehist already does this implicitly.  Perhaps it shouldn't even be
> optional as I made it (it was an easy change).

I think we should do this unconditionally, as the point here is to
locate the file and nothing else.

For the record, could you also provide details on which completion
frameworks that add text properties?  Do text properties cause any other
issues than wasted space?  It's enough to mention these detail here in
the bug report, I think, no need to add it to the commit message.

No need for NEWS here, I agree.

Pretty much all completions, core and packages, that rely on metadata or apply faces, add text properties to completion candidates.  The variable 'minibuffer-allow-text-properties' can be bound to nil but if you read https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-gnu-emacs/2025-02/msg00952.html you'll see there cases where it can't accomplish its claim.

Revised patch attached.